Protecting your pictures so they won't fade!

When I got my first ultrasound I was anxious and nervous! I couldn't wait to see my baby for the first time, it was an exciting moment for me as a mother! I was caught between if I really wanted to know what sex or if I would get to see my baby move around inside of me! The whole process was exhilarating and I couldn't wait to experience it. Now I know every ultrasound experience is different but what I believe we all have in common is the feeling of, when we see our child, a human being living inside of us for the very first time, awe!

Now for me my excuses were being so young, not having the presence of mind, and no one there to help me think of the many important moments in my journey as a mother so I didn't think to protect my ultrasound. I just assumed it would last forever!

How wrong I was, like any photo you must protect and preserve it, especially an ultrasound. Now back when I got my ultrasound it was made from receipt like paper, it was printed on a standard or high density thermal paper with black ink and if you've ever kept a receipt for a period of time the ink will begin to fade. 

This is exactly what started to happen to my ultrasound, it was devasting needless to say! My last ditch effort was to use a pen to try to outline my baby it was my only option seeing that I couldn't get a new one! 

(I wish every hospital would create an interactive website that would store every ultrasound ever taken so this could be an option for parents! Wouldn't that be a great app!)

When I started making custom keepsake pillows I thought it would be fantastic to see my family pictures immoralized for life! This is one of the ways you can preserve your ultrasound picture and have it displayed safely (pictured below). 

Make sure after you make copies you laminate the original ultrasound and then have your scanned copies saved somewhere in a few places like on a laptop, desktop, scandisk, and/or a cloud storage. This will keep your ultrasound safe in several locations.

Of course, you can frame your ultrasound for this is a traditional way to safely display your babies first photo! 

I hope you enjoyed my post and decide to get one for yourself...I don't have any affiliate links and I upkeep my site through donations and selling my custom keepsake products. 

If your interested please click the pillow pic above and then email (tsdj5@yahoo.com) me a scanned copy of your ultrasound and any text you would like to be included. After I recieve the paypal payment (tsdj5@yahoo.com) I will email you a mock of your pillow, after approval you will recieve your pillow in standard shipping time to the address provided.

Remember pictures are a great reminder of past accomplishments and they allow us to share a special time with family and friends. I hope you found my post helpful and will utilize the techniques to keep your pictures safe for years to come.

As always Happy Creating from 2ufromus!

How do you prepare for Halloween?

Do you go all out for halloween? Decorating, dressing up, or loading up with plenty of candy. If you get in on the halloween activities and your looking for some make-up tips here's a nice make-up tutorial! Enjoy

                

When should you keep a secret? Anniversary glasses! AzMarie- Morning Guarantee

If it's your anniversary or just a valentine occasion, we wish your relationship happiness and longevity. I made these wine glasses with removable adhesive vinyl to celebrate our 16th anniversary. I used our front window to give a realistic background.

Anniversary Glasses

This is a nice sentiment but the vinyl we used is not best for decorating drinking glasses you should use something with a stronger adhesive. This vinyl is good for walls and paper crafts but I figure as long as we don't wash them they should last a while!

As always I write to engage, learn from, teach, and gain readers, while combining my crafts with lesbian content, but sometimes I find issues with getting my thoughts across so they don't offend but at the same time not to cater because I agree or disagree.

Most of the time I find myself writing even though, I'm not sure where my place is in blogging because truthfully, I'm a vlogger sensation (LOA), I just have more to write about. I have the same difficulties with recording because I don't not know how to get my message out effectively.

When I brainstorm on topics and how to format, I think... Do I give advice? Speak of the unjust? or all that it could entail! Which means writing about what I feel when it occurs....hmmmm? I guess I would always have something to write about if I just stick with how I feel. 

Which brings me to my question: ₩hat if I (put yourself in this scenario) caught my married friend cheating would I tell their spouse? Or would I stay quiet. Now my wife says tell but how easy is that when you platonic-ally like them both and them together is how the friendship started. 

Besides, how shitty would I feel knowing I exposed the ugly truth and possibly started the break-up ball to rolling. What if they stayed together wouldn't I (you) be the odd wheel, even if everyone says its okay? Honestly, why is throwing a shoe so insulting? 

Is it possible to like a couple equally or is it just a form of being uninvolved? Am I relaying a lack of connection to them so my loyalty is questionable? Or could I genuinely be on the same page of friendship with this couple and telling would be hard?

Know I know there's more important issues going on in life but doesn't the lack of honesty, loyalty, respect, and concern play a strong role with our issues in life today. Now maybe your saying, "you just answered your own question" but I say doesn't honesty require loyalty and doesn't that mean respect which equals concern.

Could you tell your good friends devastating news without the worry (concern) of how your info will make them feel? In retrospect isn't that being honest, loyal, and respectful to the situation while having concern for your friends?

Please tell me, "The water or the rain" and what would you do in this situation amongst friends?

I sincerely hope you appreciate my post, music, and videos I share because my mission is to give and gain recognition for the black lesbian. I truly believe they deserve positive recognition. Enjoy and as always...

Happy Creating from 2ufromus!!!

What do you do to uphold MLK Jr.'s Dream! I decided to celebrate with a Pillow... "Peaches Accapella" Mariah Carey Cover

This post is not about statistics or a recap of the past but about the present and my role in it! I've provided links to some trusted links about his life if that is what you're looking for. 

Anybody who knows me knows that I love creating and this post is no exception but it's also about a man named Michael King Jr. who played a important role in making a difference in my existence. 

Time is up on us and my question forms as such, "Can we really expect "everyone" to be nice and care about the next persons life"? My answer would be "YES" but  reality tells me different because time after time we directly or indirectly experience hatred and violence. 

And through all that diversity that comes with life both good and bad, I practice honesty first, it gives me leisures that some have a difficult time having, now don't twist my words, I'm not saying I don't make mistakes or never lie, we all know that's BS! 

What I mean is... if my words will hurt for no reason I will avoid it like the plague and only break if cornered but if it will protect me I will stand against danger to defend it! If someone was to ask me what I thought about me I would say Phuckin EMOTIONAL!

To most this poster may seem aggressive but why, is it because the word hate is included? I agree with what Jasmine Sullivan sang, "I don't get mad for nothin" (Her video "10 seconds")!

But know I avoid that emotion like "HULK", Lol. Only those who have care and concern are welcomed in my life and if not you have no place around me or anything I love! That is how I consider my part in keeping MLK Jr.'s dream alive! I may not be in the fore front but I have one serious productive position in the back! I Love first, it just feels better! If I can't accept you I respect myself enough to leave the whole situation alone. 

One day this life I must depart and until then my journey will be where ever honesty dwells! In my opinion, if you do phucked up things ( I wanted to say shit) to people that's your honesty, if you only hurt people who hurt you that's your honesty, and if you never want to lay a hand on anyone guess what that's your honesty. My point is, How you react to life is your Honesty! You know if your a phucked up individual the difference is if you want to be DIFFERENT about your ways.

Blah Blah Blah... be good, okay you got it so lets move on. I had the opportunity to make a pillow in the honor of the Reverend Michael (Martin Luther) King, Jr. ,an adopted name (click the link to better understand) given to him by his father Michael King Sr., before his actual birthday which is January 15th, 1929 not the 19th like the minority rulers have chosen to use! 

Anyway, I'm so excited to share this with you. I did some research and came across American Rhetoric which not only has a video of his actual speech but is transcribed almost to the word (I believe there was a sentence left out). 

My quest was to find a quote from that speech that could grab the essence of the pain we continually experience and wish would die, (for those who would love to hold all accountable that violate for no justice) I think I did good choosing.

For this project I used: 

Fabric

Vinyl with adhesive and non adhesive backing

Heating Press

Polyester Fiberfil

Sewing machine and thread

Voila, you have a pillow, yaaaaaay! The hardest part was sewing the vinyl so the fabric wouldn't show through...

and some of the weeding but in the end I was holding a finished concept that I was proud to be the owner of.

If you look close you can see the decofilm super silver I decided to use in place of the white vinyl. My intentions was to make the letters red, white (silver), and blue.

Like we always do around this blog... I must leave you with one of my favorite youtube playlist videos and a track from our BandCamp Page- Midwest Royalty called "White Wings". Please support our music, thnx!

Happy Creating from 2ufromus and Happy Birthday Reverend Michael Martin Luther King Jr.!!!!!

  

Civil Rights Activist, Minister (January 15th, 1929–April 4th,1968)

"I could only pray to be so Brave" 

Happy New Year 2015... Wine Glass Pillow tutorial! Yani-Thumbs Up!

Happy New Year everyone, I pray your new year was surrounded by great friends and family! Today I wanted to write about the happy new year wine glass pillows I made, YaY!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was last minute (as usual) but nonetheless I finished them on time. Initially, I thought this would be easy as eating pie but it turned out being more like making one from scratch! Overall I think we ended up with a great handmade pillow that will grace our holiday decor for years to come.

For this project you will need:

a sewing machine

heating press

editing software(craft artist 2 pro)

vinyl cutter (craftrobo)

scissors

weeding tool

silver and gold vinyl

pillow stuffing

fabric

gold and or silver thread

ruler

First you want to create your design in your editing software, I use craft artist 2 professional on my PC. Now make sure to flip your design so the text is back words because if not you will be wasting a piece of material and we don't want that, ughhhh. 

 

Then you want to cut the vinyl with dull side up because this is the part that will be heated onto your fabric.

There's several parts to this project so bare with me while I try to break each one down and please excuse my lightening we're still working on getting better lights. Anyway, you want to prepare your fabric so the vinyl can be applied.

I gave my vinyl 2 inches around each side just so I would have enough to play with when it was time to start sewing. It took us several tries but we finally got it to where we were satisfied and proud of the end result.

With the first attempt (black and silver pillow) we tried sewing inside out, stuffing, and then outlining with the silver thread but that proved to be more difficult then we wanted to deal with so we just stitched and outlined the white and gold pillow and used white thread to close the edges. On the black and silver we sewed inside out and tried to outline with the silver before stuffing but we figured next time we would just use the same method on the black and silver that we did with the white and gold. The thread was really brittle and snapped a lot. The picture below shows our first attempt of the outlining, not bad but just not to our liking

After I removed the gold thread I decided to place it on the bottom of the glass and fray the edges. I think it turned out okay and went well at the new years gathering we attended!

When I do these again I know I will make the black and silver the same way we did the white and gold. I like the way they turned out but the cutting style on the white and gold in my opinion was easier and looks better. What do you think?

I wanted to show the vinyl up close. I hope you can see how bright the silver is and the depth of the gold. Next time I will use a shinier gold vinyl. I like the way the silver shines!

Well I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and it sparked some ideas in your head. As always I must leave you with one of my favorite youtube videos and a song from our  midwest royalty bandcamp site. Happy Creating and Happy New Year from 2ufromus! #2015

This track is called My Swag. I hope you like it... please support your indie artist!

Syncing your Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter! Loyalty freestyle...Diiamond Royalty

I spend a lot of time online trying to find fresh content that will engage my readers, watchers, and listeners. As a staff of one it's hard to update to my chosen three and I find myself looking for a solution to update all of my accounts at once. I've tried hootsuite but they're only compatible with two, so it defeats the purpose of using them because I want to update all three. Really there's nothing available, that's free, that will handle this task, so I thought?

The one thing I've learned surfing is I can count on learning something I didn't know... sometimes it can be enlightening or annoying, fortunately, this time it was enlightening and I'm glad I engaged in my amateur research (even when I give up I try again) because I found this article. It connects your facebook to your twitter. At the present moment the only issue is my pictures don't come through even though I have photos and so on selected to be included. After I do some more research I hope it will all be good and I can tweet and update statuses simultaneously. Wish me luck...

Update: Everything works good and my text and pics go through perfectly.

Now way before I found this article I learned that my Pinterest actual posted to my other two media sites thus solving my issue of updating simultaneous. I just have to do everything from Pinterest, even though I don't post directly from Pinterest most of the time by choice and truthfully I would rather not. Now this convenience has a big BUT because it only works on a desktop. Trust there's no obstacle shortage.

 
It would be nice if there was an app that took your (chosen) sites and allowed you to connect, update, tweet, and pin correctly from one place. I'm not complaining because a PC is still a effective tool when I have a nice size of content that I want to share and not to mention (why do we say that but still mention), I always find content in the content so an hour turns into three or more hrs. and to be honest tablets or notes aren't really built to do all that!

Shop Amazon - Save Up to 50% on Project Life Scrapbooking  

Honestly, sharing can be consuming but I love discovering and learning, so I don't mind. I just wish it was easier for the one women staff, trying to get more traffic and some customers to update!

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We've come to the point where I share a favorite video and one of our tracks! As always Happy Creating from 2ufromus and support your local artist. Enjoy...

Let's Assume...Is a track that represents the strength of this women! Until next time!

 

Making a Handmade Photo Tree Topper! (Temper "Success")

It's the last month of the year and most people around the world are putting up christmas trees and decorations. Like most people we also participate in the christmas ritual of christmas balls, mistletoe, nativity scenes, and cards. We put our tree in front of the window so our tree can be seen from the street. This is something we've done every year so this year is no exception, except we will be adding a personalized item to our christmas decorations.

As some will know I enjoy creating so this photo tree topper is right up my crafting tree, pun intended. In this post I will be showing you how you can add this wonderful idea to your tree and enjoy it for years to come.

For this project you will need:
*Scissors
*Card stock
*Printer
*Ink
*Photos
*Laminator(sheets)
*Glue
*Rhinestones
*Silver Leaf
*Adhesive spray
*Sponge applicator
*Crafting software
*Cardboard
*Scotch tape (clear)

When I was creating my topper I decided to use the star shape tool and combine 2 of them together. After I gathered my photos my first choice was to use the punch tool but my photos didn't show in the star good. Below is what my first attempt look like?

So I decided to print the entire collage with the star placed on top of the photos that were manipulated exactly how I wanted them to appear. This is what it looked like after I printed it.

Once you have the photos arranged it's time to place your card stock in a laminating sheet and run it through your laminator, I use scotch 3M thermal laminator. My laminator has a blue indicator light when it's hot and ready to use.

It takes about 10 secs to run a 8x11 sheet through the laminator, that is when were ready to cut the tree topper out and get it prepared to silver leaf. I used craft bond adhesive spray and placed my topper on a piece of cardboard so the adhesive wouldn't get on anything else. I placed about 3 pieces of silver leaf and used my sponge applicator to smooth it out over the back of the topper. Now I'm not good at leafing so some of the leaf didn't apply but I just let it be and it ended up giving it a vintage look.

After you allow the adhesive and leaf to bond I proceeded to put my rhinestones on each point of the star on the picture side of our topper. In this project I used various sizes of rhinestones but of course you can choose any style you like and that includes leafing the back. Have fun and make it your own!

After your finished decorating and all your embellishments have dried its time to attach a holder so your topper can be placed atop your tree. We just used a piece of card stock and some clear scotch tape.

 (Update- we had to use glue (e6000) to adhere the paper tube on the back)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and your family is in "aww" of their new christmas addition. If your so inclined please leave some examples in the comments. We would love to see how yours turned out and I'll pin it on my Pinterest board. 

Happy Holidays

 As always, I must leave you with a video and one of our songs. Make sure to celebrate safe and around people who love and respect you. Have fun and enjoy our track  
Throw it Up!  
Happy Creating from 2ufromus!

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